AMSTERDAM — Dutch police say the country's former health minister, a woman who drafted the nation's landmark 2002 law permitting euthanasia, has been found dead in her garage. They have ruled out natural causes.

In a statement, Utrecht police said Tuesday that Els Borst, 81, was found by a friend early Monday evening.

After an inquest was inconclusive, police sent her body for a full autopsy to determine the cause of death. Police say they expect that she died either as the result of "an accident or possibly a crime."

Her house in Bilthoven, a suburb of Utrecht, was cordoned off Tuesday and investigators could be seen searching inside it.

Borst was seen in good spirits as recently as Saturday, at a function for her centrist D66 political party.